Fast & FREE Shipping!

This blog provides information for educational purposes only. Read our complete summary for more info.

January 29, 2014
Last updated

How to Know When Fermentation Has Finished

Chief Operating Officer at Clawhammer
Outdated. New article here.

Emmet Leahy is the Chief Operating Officer and lead product developer at Clawhammer Supply, a small scale distillation and brewing equipment company. He loves the process of developing new equipment for making beer at home just as much as he does using it to brew his own beer. He's also passionate about teaching people how to use distillation equipment to produce distilled water, essential oils, and with the proper permits, fuel alcohol and distilled spirits.

  • Where I live the summer temperatures are also too hot for the turbo yeasts. some solutions are:
    - cool your wash right down to 18 degrees celsius before adding the yeast;
    - Put the fermentation bucket in another bucket with water- evaporation helps cooling down a little;
    - use distillers yeast that may generate less heat on its own.
    Overheating of the wash during fermentation will result in less of an alcohol yield, but the end result may still be impressive.
    I don’t know if it gets cold in your part of australia, but turbo yeast gives impressive results (up to 22%) when the fermentation bucket is kept really cold.

    Posted by Abe on June 20, 2017
  • I have had my mash working for a week with turbo yeast and its almost quit working and its kinda week can i still run it

    Posted by Jimmy Wilson on February 24, 2017
  • I am new to this and may sound like a stupid question but here it goes.
    Can i add turbo yeast to my already fermenting mash ? If so should i add the 24 or 48 hr yeast. i didnt plan very well and going on vacation .
    As of today it has been 3 full days of fermentation .
    Please help !!!
    Thanks in advance

    Posted by Jon on February 21, 2017
  • A quick question. At the end of fermentation do I need to siphon off the water or do I leave for the processing? I have a flat top still and the bottom is the fermentation pot. Any help will be appreciated.

    Posted by Bill on February 20, 2017
  • Have my corn maize & sugar w/whiskey turbo yeast in 6.5 gal bucket,do I wait until all bubbling has stopped or is there a day limit (like 2 weeks)

    Posted by MIke cHristensen on February 03, 2017
  • ottawa canada

    im did a double batch of the rebel rum recipe from this website, (with a few secret adds), and pitched it with 1 pack per carboy Lavlin ec 1118 yeast – its been bubbling for 21 days straight, in a 70 celcius room. first 14 days it bubbled 21 times per minutes, then slowed to half that. if you raise the temp in the room to 5-10 degrees it will speed up the process – but the yeast i used was 18%abv which is also high so its taking longer than normal. as longs as its bubbling…let it bubble…until it stops. like the joe dirt movie, “He’ll finish when he’s done dear”.

    Posted by jason on January 27, 2017
  • Gday guys I live in Perth Western Australia and the temperturehere in summer is on average 37 degrees cellcus I just did my first ever mash a simple sugar shine using turbo yeast (it was recomended to me by the brew shop) I pitch the yeast at 30 degrees but today’s temp has been 39 degrees I have managed to keep the mashes temp down too 34 degrees will this result in a bad was

    Posted by John mastaglia on January 05, 2017
  • My mix is in a 5gal water cooler.I place 4 to 6 inches of whole corn,10 lbs of sugar and 6 pks of yeast.Fill container with water.mix well and allow to seat for 30 to 40 days.At that time there is no more activity.The final product produces 1 quart and a 5th of good moonshine.The proof is always a 100 proof.

    Posted by Pat Leary on December 07, 2016
  • I am new to the whole home brewing community. being this is my first time to do a run, I am making 2 different 1 gallon batches. I used the same amount of pre distilled water, bread yeast, and sugar in both. the difference is one has strawberrys and pineapple the other is just sugar. my concern is the one with fruit has stopped as far as any activity (in the airlock, or any small foaming/bubbling) and the sugar one is still going strong {bubble the airlock once every 3 seconds or so}. at this point they have both been going now for 4 days. any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated.

    Posted by justin on October 14, 2016
  • Is it necessary to use thump keg

    Posted by Popav on August 07, 2016
  • to tyler yes filter for best and easy clean up
    i have s small 15 gal beer keg still with a 1 gal thumper. make several 55 gal barrels of wine last year. free fruit cant turn it down. today make a barrel of all grain mash 30 lb ground corn 5 lb barley malt 50 lb sugar. did it a little different this time 30 gal water at 200 f poured on corn and let sit stirred every 15 minutes for several hours. added another 15 gal at 150 f and 50 lb sugar once it cooled down to 150 added 1 teaspoon amylase stirring again ever 15 minutes mash thinned out a lot then added about 3 lb malt barley test on the hydrometer shows a starting of 1.06 happy with this point. will let it cool over night covered and add a gal of whiskey yeast tomorrow will see what it works to next week.
    the wines had a off flavor so i ran 4 batches and collected about 12 gal at 100 proof less the fore shot. ran this with pure water in the thumper pulled 7 gal at 155 proof and it dropped quickly on the last 2 gal to 140 and 90 on the last 2 gal 4 gal for moonshine@ 110 proof and 3 gal to make bourbon style whiskey@ 100 proof.
    starting gravity on this all grain batch show 1.06.
    wish i started doing this 20 years ago. who ever said making shine was easy must have been young man.

    Posted by tank on May 13, 2016
  • So I’m in the process of fermenting my shine. And I would like to know since I have it in five gallon buckets if I need to relieve the pressure inside by cracking the lid once a day or so. Or is there another way I should be going about this. Also my second question is when it’s time to run my mash for the final product, do I have to filter out all the corn and sugar and everything in my ferment buckets? Or do I pour everything into my still?

    Posted by TYler on May 03, 2016
  • I have a mash working now for 8 days. I used 10lbs.of sugar with 5 inches of c.o.b. feed b in a bucket . after straining my wash I added 2 qts.of pureed re – hydrated fruit, then run thru my blender with distilled water. I added 4 tbls.of turbo yeast with 4 gals.distilled water.its working good now for 8 days.it started working 10 mins.after adding air lock.should get a gal.out of my onion top copper still at 150 proff.

    Posted by Andy on April 04, 2016
  • Just started my first batch see how it goes

    Posted by phil on March 30, 2016
  • WHY WOULD MY AIRLOCK SHOW NO ACTIVITY BUT I CCANT HEAR AND SMELL IT FERMENTING

    Posted by BRYCE on March 26, 2016
  • I have a question that I hope you can help me with. I am a long time all grain Brewer and I am on my 2nd batch in my new still. Last batch my fermentation stopped at .02 OG was about .067, and I could not do anything to get it to move, so I figured I must not have achieved full conversion? Second time around I used and iodine test to validate my conversion then moved it to my conical. I hit it with a turbo yeast on Monday, now at Friday and it’s stopped at 1.025, Making me nervous… Not sure what the possible cause might be. Secondly, when I distilled my last batch I got decent yeild for quantity but a alcohol content of 40-55% about half the proof I expected ( I made all my cuts at specific temps). But I figured with the lower fermentation I would just get a lower yeild of high proof, not normal yeild with lower proof? Hopefully you can help me I am new to this so just a few questions.

    Posted by STeve on March 11, 2016
  • Dear friends, i am a newbie, my fermentation is going on with 4KG sugar and 1KG molasses in 20l water. Used 20g of bakers yest hydrated in a slice of bread, with an air lock bucket. Its been 10 days and bubbling, how many days should i wait

    Posted by Mike on March 10, 2016
  • I’m running a 5 gallon still with a thumper before the coil , is the first few ounces coming off the coil still poison or has the thumper eaten that ?

    Posted by paul on February 26, 2016
  • I’ve had this same thing happen to me before. What I did was get a packet of
    dry yeast – dissolve it in small amount of warm water with no sugar in glass
    when it has a good rise to it pour it slowly into your wash. It will start to
    eat the sugar again – let it set till done then run it as soon as it stops. your
    alcohol content should be good.

    Posted by steve on December 16, 2015
  • This question is for Jake (or anyone who knows). on the yeast, will the instant yeast still work? i unfortunately just ran across your post after i pitched flieshmann’s instant yeast. next time i’ll definitely use the active dry yeast, but i’m wondering if i should just throw this whole mash out now that i’ve pitched the instant yeast. 5 gallons of sugar wash, necessary nutrients/buffer, 10 grams of yeast.

    Posted by Beau on November 07, 2015


Leave a comment

Please note, the design of our website does not allow us to respond directly to blog comments. Please email us directly regarding questions about products. We don't answer questions about recipes, procedures, etc. However, feel free to leave a comment or respond to comments made by others!

Enter your email address below and we'll send you a free eBook on how to get started with brewing or distilling!
>